Malas housing restrictions?

[Shakkar]

I was under the impression that you could not build keeps or castles in malas. like magincia the homes are restricted in size? If this is true then why in the north part of malas in areas housing cannot be created there is castles privatly owned on the 4 shards I checked there is random castles there. owned by players, tho a few was public most were private. Is there a double standard here? or will we be able to upsize our malas places to castles also? Since gms can not help you place a home how did these come to be in what is and always has been a no housing zone? i truthfully have no idea what is going on here and wanted some input from others who may have already had this question answered.

 

[Barok]

Those castles were given away as prizes in one or more contests.

 

[claudia-fjp]

Mostly or all in 1 contest when Age of Shadows launched. Not all of the castles were claimed and placed. Also a little known fact is the castles don't count for housing on an account so if the castle is transferred to you account your current house doesn't decay. Who wouldn't want 2 castles on one account? Rarity and that fact is why they are so highly sought after.

Now for anyone who's run around Malas on most servers it's blatantly obvious that the No Keeps or Castles rule is outdated. There are more empty spots than ones with houses these days.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

I think Castles and Keeps, on whatever ground they cover, should be their base size, end the public area and coding nightmares inside keeps, same for castles. This would also enable deco in those previous Non areas.

 

[Shakkar]

so that explains why all the spots appear to be identical and some of them are indeed not placed on all shards. since I have played forever and a day I wonder how I could of missed that contest? was it open to all like the sa houses where we got lanterns? or what?

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

so that explains why all the spots appear to be identical and some of them are indeed not placed on all shards. since I have played forever and a day I wonder how I could of missed that contest? was it open to all like the sa houses where we got lanterns? or what?

Yes all active accounts were eligible and there were five castles supposed to be given away, by random selection, on each shard. Players could win more than one. You were supposed to receive an email if you won and had to respond to it to confirm. Many were never claimed and there never was a redraw for the unclaimed ones.

 

[claudia-fjp]

ORIGIN - Ultima Online - Main

My bad, dunno why I thought it was AOS lauch, that woulda made too much sense for EA... lol

That site has all the details and a list of the winners... and in incorrect Q&A question which IS more in line with EA's track record.

 

[MalagAste]

Yes all active accounts were eligible and there were five castles supposed to be given away, by random selection, on each shard. Players could win more than one. You were supposed to receive an email if you won and had to respond to it to confirm. Many were never claimed and there never was a redraw for the unclaimed ones.

that is correct sadly I wish they would rethink that as well... but more importantly I wish they would fix castles and keeps to not be so..... um..... user-unfriendly.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

Mostly or all in 1 contest when Age of Shadows launched. Not all of the castles were claimed and placed. Also a little known fact is the castles don't count for housing on an account so if the castle is transferred to you account your current house doesn't decay. Who wouldn't want 2 castles on one account? Rarity and that fact is why they are so highly sought after.

Now for anyone who's run around Malas on most servers it's blatantly obvious that the No Keeps or Castles rule is outdated. There are more empty spots than ones with houses these days.

That's not true. Castles do count and will decay your old house. However, these contest houses were handed out by GM's and a GM can override the one house per account limit hence why these contest winners got 2 houses on their accounts.

 

[claudia-fjp]

That's not true. Castles do count and will decay your old house. However, these contest houses were handed out by GM's and a GM can override the one house per account limit hence why these contest winners got 2 houses on their accounts.

I didn't say all castles, I said THE castles, as in the contest ones we are all talking about. I know people who own them, they purchased them from the winners and their houses that were on the accounts they had the castles transferred to did not decay.

 

[Poo]

thats strange.
it says 5 per shard.

yet on most shards ive only ever seen 1 castle there.

 

[claudia-fjp]

On Pacific at least only 4 of the 5 were ever claimed, they are all on Grimswind. One was move into but the winner never unpacked or moved or added an item in the past 8 or 9 years. Another castle showed up at some point in the last year I think, west of Luna but was then taken over from the owner by Mesanna. Probably because it was placed via a snafu or exploit.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

There's a huge dramatic story of hacking and incompetence behind the castle West of Luna on Pacific. There's at least one thread about it around here somewhere.